Page 246

“OPEN IT,” Sydney says. “Open it, open it, open it⁠—”

“Give her a second,” Gianna says, already on her feet, already coming around the fire to sit on my other side.

My hands are not entirely steady. Cal’s arms come around me from behind, his chin back on my shoulder this time, and he says, low, just for me, “Whatever the number is, you’re still the smartest person at this fire.”

“That’s an extremely low bar,” Luca calls, his voice reaching everyone. I must have a word with him later about his whispering skills.

I open the portal.

The page takes three seconds to load. Three of the longest seconds of my life, and I am sitting on a blanket in Joshua Tree in the firelight with five people holding their breath around me, and my thumb is hovering, and this is⁠—

The number on the screen is the number I wrote in pencil at the top of my first practice paper in October, in the column marked target.

“Well?!” Sydney is vibrating. “Bea. BEA. I can’t tell if you’re happy or sad, and I need to know what it means⁠—”

“I got it,” I say, and my voice cracks straight down the middle. “I got my target. To the point. I got the exact⁠—”

I don’t get to finish, because Sydney hits me at the velocity of a linebacker and we both go sideways off the blanket into the dirt, and she is screaming, actually screaming, into the desert night, “SHE’S GOING TO BE A DOCTOR,” and somewhere above us, Cal is laughing and Gianna is saying I knew it, I knew it, and the fire pops like even it’s celebrating.

Sydney hauls me up. Gianna hugs me next, tight and warm and slightly teary, which for Gianna is the equivalent of fireworks.

And then the boys are up.

Harrison first, hand raised. “Come on. You’ve earned it.” The sound of the high five cracks.

Eli next, quieter, that small still smile of his. “Congratulations, Bea.” He pulls me into a warm hug.

Then Luca, who cannot do anything at regular volume, backs up three full steps for a running start. “She’s a genius!” he announces, and pulls me into his arms as he howls at the sky like a wolf, and I am laughing so hard I can barely stand.

Then Cal.

He doesn’t high five me. He picks me up—fully off the ground, my feet swinging—and spins me once in the firelight while everyone whoops, and when he sets me down, he takes my face in both hands the way he does.

“Doctor Walker,” he says.

“Not yet.”

“Doctor Walker,” he says again. “You did it, Bea.”

My eyes are wet, and I don’t fight it. My dad would have been so happy. And for the first time, that thought doesn’t ache going down. It just makes me smile, and Sydney is already on the phone to my mother, holding it up, shouting, “TELL HER, TELL HER YOURSELF,” and my mom’s voice is coming tinny and delighted through the speaker from somewhere in the mountains.

Luca reappears from the house with an armful of whatever bottles were in the fridge and starts handing them around with the gravity of a sommelier. “A toast,” he says, “to future Doctor Walker.”

We raise our bottles. The fire throws sparks up.

“To my girl,” Cal says, warm behind me again, his arm around my shoulder, his mouth against my hair.

I let myself be proud. Not quietly. Not privately, alone at a kitchen table where no one can see.

It’s better this way. It’s so much better.

I did it.

I’m going to be a doctor.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Cal